The University of Edinburgh in Scotland is planning to ban Bibles from its student residence halls. This was in response to student protests that the Good Book is discriminating towards non-Christians. Last year, the school banned prayer at graduation ceremonies.

This of course triggered massive protests by Christians all over Scotland. Revival FM, a local Christian radio station, called the proposed ban discriminating against Christians. Ian Dunlop, chairman of the station declares that this ban…

flies in the face of everything that we stand for here in the U.K. as a nation standing for freedom and tolerance.

Now on the surface this does indeed appear to be potentially discriminatory towards Christianity. But upon closer inspection, the school isn’t really banning Bibles, just the placement of Bibles by the University in the rooms of new students.

This issue, to me at least, seems like a very simple matter. It is not the University’s job to purchase and distribute Bibles to persons who may or may not be Christian. Hell, why don’t they also provide students with free copies of their textbooks :) By supplying Bibles, and not other religious texts, the school is in fact discriminating towards people of other faiths. They are imposing Christianity on its students.

Now of course you can easily throw the Bible away, but you can just as easily bring your own. The University’s job is to educate people through an approved curriculum and not to proselytize. That is the role of family, friends, and churches.

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I normally ignore a bible when it is in a hotel room, though at a certain level it irks me that it is there. It isn’t hard to see how some people might be offended if of an alternate faith. I wonder what the demand would be like if the college allowed people collect their bible at a stand during the first week?

If the university wants to be so kind as to provide its sutdents with books of faith, they could ask for their religion in one of the billions of forms to fill out and then provide an appropriate piece of faithful literature. A Bible, Torah, Qur’an, Sruti, Tripitaka or whatever. Of course, not to discriminate followers of the more exotic beliefs, they would also have to offer the Satanic Bible, a Book Of Shadows and several more, not to leave out the Critique Of Pure Reason for us atheists. I’m looking forward to visiting Scotland as soon as this kind of tolerance is established!

Another thought: Since few students will actually read these bibles providing them anyway is a waste of paper. By providing bibles they bring forth the destruction of the creation. Contradictory to me.

The story certainly had me up in arms until I was supplied some context. As a Christian I’m not suprised or particularly upset with the student body’s position. Christianity and Biblical principles offer a truly meaningful principle of tolerance among diverse ideologies. But let the students decide for themselves.

The problem with the Bible these days is that, even in academic circles, very few people have any idea what the Bible tells people and teaches people. The main reason for this is that the Bible is an exptremely thick and difficult book to read. In fact it cannot be read and understood by people who have not first read a good introduction. An introduction that makes the people who want to start reading the Bible familiar with its main story-line, its main characters (God, Jesus Christ, Abraham, Moses, Israel) and its main concepts (good and evil, sin, salvation, life after death).

I have written a good introduction in my website: abc-of-christianity.com.
I think that this website can mean a lot for people who want to get to know and understand the messages that God, Jesus Christ, the Bible and Christianity want to tell people.

To be honest: my main reason for writing this comment is an attempt to get visitors/readers for my website: link dropping.

Your post is simply nonsense. The bible is not nearly as difficult to read as e.g. a textbook on advanced quantum mechanics or general relativity. Many people in “academic circles” understand what the bible is saying, and can plainly see its self-contradictions and errors. That is why they can so soundly reject the bible as nothing more than fiction and wishful thinking.

Perhaps it is the self-contradictions and the errors that need explaining and perhaps it is possible that many things in the Bible only seem to contradict each other whearas in reality they complement each other.
Do not forget that in the last 2000 years hundreds of millions of people have lived their lives on the assumption that the Bible is the word of God. Is not it a fact that no other force in the history of the Western world has had the impact on this history as Christianity has had?
There is no way of proving that God exists or that God does not exist. There is no way of proving that the Bible is the word of God or that the Bible is only fiction and wishful thinking.
Even if the Bible is fiction, it is the most important and most influential fiction ever written. Even in our world today, 2008, there exist more than 200 million copies of the book.
In short: every reason to visit my website and see if it can do something for you or not. Do not condem it without reading a few pages of it.

The reality that the bible is fictional, self-contradictory, and contains wishful thinking is obvious, is proven, and has been covered elsewhere and almost endlessly on religiousfreaks.com. Time for you to do some research here.

I absolutely adore studying your web site posts, the variety of writing is smashing.This blog as usual was educational, I’ve had to bookmark your site and subscribe for your feed in ifeed. Your theme looks lovely.

Some Muslim women add a face veil to the hijab – this is called the niqab. Does the Bible contain any reference or instruction pertaining to the niqab?

There is no explicit teaching within the Bible instructing the wearing of the face veil – this does not mean the Bible militates against the niqab nor does it give Christians carte blanche to harass Muslim ladies whom decide to wear such a covering.

Ah, but there’s the rub, right? How many of them actually CHOOSE to wear it? If in an islamic country you can be murdered for not wearing it, and make no mistake you can andf probably will be killed, then how much choice is involved? Haven’t you seen the many many stories of muslim women being murdered for adopting western dress etc.?

From Staring at the View blog: ” if you are an intelligent young 17 year old Muslim girl, ask yourself if you could imagine yourself falling in love with the 62 year old man who had exiled your family from their home, beheaded your father and brother on the same day, tortured and beheaded your husband, and then raped you that night? Then ask yourself how you could possibly believe that about Muhammad’s wife Safiya.”

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